So, two pilots fly commercial to say, Pittsburg. One pilot pays his own way, the other has his flight paid for. These two pilots drive to say, Maryland and fly an airplane back to say, Alabama. This first pilot pays for the fuel, the second pilot gets paid a couple hundred dollars. The first pilot logged every second of the flight. Is the FAA boogie man coming after the first pilot?
ETA: pilot one is PPL, pilot two is CPL
No but a qualified no. The second pilot was a CPL so he's completely within his rights to accept payment for his services. Additionally, the second pilot did not log any time.
If the flight were done for expenses only for a complete stranger whom you have no further contact with after the flight and no flight time was logged, it would be difficult to make a "good-will compensation" or "flight time compensation" argument. The only thing the FAA could then argue is that the experience alone was some form of compensation which I suppose is possible but would be difficult to prove in the sense that there is no record of the flight or who flew it.
If Tom had a medical, and was selling his plane to someone who offered a return airline ticket to Tom if Tom delivers his plane to the buyer, may Tom do that as a PPL holder?
Technically no, but if the cost of the plane were to increase by the cost of the return airline ticket... That's a different story.
It seems that a few on here seem to not only believe that breaking the rules is okay as long as you do it quietly and don't get caught but outright advocate doing so. An amazing bunch of wannabe pirates. Though I guess if you are okay with paying the price if caught, might as well go for it. And many are caught.
It's more than just that. Its that the FAA's rules for compensation of a private pilot are sufficiently vague so as to support both arguments. Good-will and flight time as compensation lean in the FAA's favor whereas hotel, meals, commercial airline tickets and other "incidental" expenses lean in the pilot's favor. It becomes a question of what is incidental to the flight and what is a required part of the flight and what are the motives behind a dozen other decisions.
That's how the youtuber's are making their money with/without commercial pilot certificates. They are arguing that the flight is not where they are deriving their revenue but rather they are paid and sponsored for the video content they produce. That may be true but flying is central to their video content, remove flying from the video and the number of viewers is likely to drop significantly. That's also why you've seen a lot of youtuber's get into other alternative ground content; if their channel has a good number of ground videos mixed in with flight content, it becomes harder for the FAA to say they are making money from the flying.
If I take my friends up flying because they want to go, then I am technically being compensated for the flight in the form of goodwill with my friends. If I want to go and my friends come along, then I am not being compensated for the flight. If my friends and I both want to go, then I can be compensated the pro-rata portion of the flight but after the flight is over, while we're out maybe my friends decide to buy me dinner... Are they compensating me for the flight, just being good friends or trying to get my good will? It all becomes very grey very quickly.
Another example where lines get blurred and it becomes difficult to say where the line is and whether its been crossed... My friends buy and gift me a game to the football game in the next state over that they are also going to. As a result of now needing transportation to the game I decide I am going to fly and extend the offer to fly to my friends. Our destination/purpose of flight is aligned so legally I can accept pro-rata pay for the flight but did the original gift of the ticket qualify as compensation not only in excess of the pro-rata portion but in a wider perspective as well? If I didn't have the ticket, I wouldn't have reason to make the flight and probably wouldn't have offered to fly...
It all comes down to motives and its not just the pilots motives that matter. Maybe my friends bought me the ticket for the game to gain good will with the expectation that I might offer to fly them or maybe they didn't. Convincing an ALJ that the ticket was a no-strings attached gift would require other mitigating circumstances such as a recent birthday or proof that they were going to travel to the game by other means which can be difficult to prove; ultimately with ALJ's unlike criminal law you are often guilty until proven innocent.
Its the same issue the FAA had with that true ride-sharing site for pilots a few years ago... Even some of the commercial pilots on that site got in trouble because the FAA felt that the pilots were offering trips they had little intention of going on without a passenger to split costs with or they were accepting and going on trips they otherwise would not have taken if they did not have a passenger looking for the same and therefore crossed the line of holding out.
As is typical of a government agency, the FAA shows a huge cognitive dissonance in allowing pilots to a lot of discretion in things like log books and PIC safety-pilots while at the same time treating pilots like 3-year olds that will always going to lie, cheat and steal their way to flight time in other instances such as compensation arguments or medicals.
Exactly. Keep your trap shut and nobody will know what you’re doing. It’s nobody’s business anyway. That’s the whole point!
A CPL gets offered money to fly people around but they refuse the offer because it doesn’t pay enough so the owner uses a private pilot and the CPL gets ticked off... what a hypocrite. It was his loss not to take the job.
I agree its a douche thing to do to rat someone out but then the CPL paid a lot of money, did his time and paid his dues the right way to get where he is, further he derives his living from flying planes and it wasn't like he was undercut by another CPL but rather he was undercut by somebody not even legally qualified for the task.
This has applicable cross-overs to other fields some of which get real political (migrant workers for example) while others are just more financial... Getting a non-certified electrician to do electrical work in your house could result in poorly completed work that is not to code and ultimately may result in an insurance denial if they determine the cause of an electrical fire was the direct result of the poor workmenship.
